{"id":1609,"date":"2019-01-02T14:10:27","date_gmt":"2019-01-02T14:10:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.haloproject.org.uk\/blog\/?p=1609"},"modified":"2019-01-02T14:10:27","modified_gmt":"2019-01-02T14:10:27","slug":"jeremy-hunt-to-investigate-morally-repugnant-rescue-fees-for-forced-marriage-victims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.haloproject.org.uk\/blog\/jeremy-hunt-to-investigate-morally-repugnant-rescue-fees-for-forced-marriage-victims\/","title":{"rendered":"Jeremy Hunt to investigate &#8216;morally repugnant&#8217; rescue fees for forced marriage victims"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"sdc-news-story-article__intro\">The Foreign Office has been branded &#8220;morally repugnant&#8221; for charging forced marriage victims for their own rescue as Jeremy Hunt pledged to investigate the policy.<\/p>\n<div class=\"sdc-news-story-article__body\">\n<p>The foreign secretary said Britain should always act with &#8220;compassion and humanity&#8221; after MPs criticised the practice of recouping the cost of helping citizens return home.<\/p>\n<div class=\"ad ad--teads\">\n<div class=\"sdc-site-au \" data-ad-format=\"teads\" data-type=\"\" data-advert-rendered=\"4x4\">\n<div id=\"teads\" class=\"sdc-site-au__teads\" data-role=\"ad-container\" data-config=\"{&quot;id&quot;:&quot;teads&quot;,&quot;tag&quot;:&quot;20346936\\\/skynews\\\/uk\\\/content&quot;,&quot;size&quot;:{&quot;mobile&quot;:[[4,4]],&quot;desktop&quot;:[[4,4]]},&quot;targeting&quot;:{&quot;platform&quot;:&quot;live&quot;,&quot;artId&quot;:11596597}}\" data-targeting-strnativekey=\"\" data-targeting-platform=\"\" data-tag=\"\" data-component-name=\"sdc-site-mpu\" aria-label=\"Advertisement\" data-tolerance=\"2\" data-slot-called=\"1\" data-google-query-id=\"CL2mhO-iz98CFSKs7QodgQICDg\">\n<div id=\"google_ads_iframe_20346936\/skynews\/uk\/content_1__container__\"><iframe id=\"google_ads_iframe_20346936\/skynews\/uk\/content_1\" title=\"3rd party ad content\" name=\"google_ads_iframe_20346936\/skynews\/uk\/content_1\" width=\"4\" height=\"4\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" data-google-container-id=\"3\" data-load-complete=\"true\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Victims must pay for their plane ticket, food and shelter themselves, or &#8211; if they are over 18 &#8211; they can take out emergency loans from the government, according to an investigation by The Times.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We must always behave with compassion and humanity and look at these situations on an individual basis,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The important thing to say here is we are very good at getting these girls and women home after the terrible ordeal of a forced marriage.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We&#8217;re known for the fact we have this huge diplomatic network around the world that is very, very good at helping Brits in distress and situations like this.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>According to the Times, four young British women were sent by their families to a &#8220;correctional school&#8221; in Somalia in 2018, where they were imprisoned and physically abused.<\/p>\n<p>They were charged \u00a3740 each and reportedly left destitute by the loans &#8211; and The Times was told that two of them were now living in refuges since returning to the UK, while two had become drug addicts.<\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"sdc-site-outbrain sdc-site-outbrain--AR_6\">\n<div id=\"outbrain_widget_0\" class=\"OUTBRAIN\" data-src=\"https:\/\/news.sky.com\/story\/foreign-office-makes-forced-marriage-victims-pay-for-their-rescue-11596597\" data-widget-id=\"AR_6\" data-ob-template=\"bskyb\" data-ob-mark=\"true\" data-browser=\"chrome\" data-os=\"macintel\" data-dynload=\"\" data-idx=\"0\">\n<div class=\"ob_box_cont CR_6\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Women who have taken out loans have had their passports cancelled, and were told they cannot get a new one until the debt is repaid.<\/p>\n<p>A 10% surcharge is also added if the emergency loan is not repaid within six months.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Hunt, who is in Singapore at the start of a three-day visit to Asia, said he wanted &#8220;to get to the bottom&#8221; of the issue.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/news.sky.com\/story\/foreign-office-makes-forced-marriage-victims-pay-for-their-rescue-11596597\">https:\/\/news.sky.com\/story\/foreign-office-makes-forced-marriage-victims-pay-for-their-rescue-11596597<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Foreign Office has been branded &#8220;morally repugnant&#8221; for charging forced marriage victims for their own rescue as Jeremy Hunt pledged to investigate the policy. The foreign secretary said Britain should always act with &#8220;compassion and humanity&#8221; after MPs criticised the practice of recouping the cost of helping citizens return home. Victims must pay for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[419],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1609","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-forced-marriage"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.haloproject.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1609","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.haloproject.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.haloproject.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.haloproject.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.haloproject.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1609"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.haloproject.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1609\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1610,"href":"https:\/\/www.haloproject.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1609\/revisions\/1610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.haloproject.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.haloproject.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.haloproject.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}